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Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice
Arguing that the concept of ritual is overdue for critical rethinking, Bell here offers a close theoretical analysis of recent developments in ritual studies, concentrating on anthropology, sociology, and history of religions. She begins by showing how discourse on ritual has served to generate and legitimate a limited and ultimately closed form of cultural analysis. She then proposes that so-called ritual activities be removed from their isolated position as special, paradigmatic acts and restored to the context of "social activity" in general. Using the term "ritualization" to
describe ritual thus contextualized, she defines it as a culturally strategic way of acting. She goes on to show how this definition can serve to illuminate such classic issues in traditional ritual studies as belief, ideology, legitimation, and power.
describe ritual thus contextualized, she defines it as a culturally strategic way of acting. She goes on to show how this definition can serve to illuminate such classic issues in traditional ritual studies as belief, ideology, legitimation, and power.
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 30, 1992
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June 6, 2015
In this seminal contribution to the field of ritual studies, Catherine Bell does not, in fact, put forward a generalizing theory of what ritual is or does. Indeed, the first part of the book is devoted to deconstructing the very practice of such theorization as one of self-deception on the part of the theorist, circularly constructing the object of analysis through the very selection and application of a particular analytic method - a pattern of misrecognition which Bell later discerns within the operation of ritual practice itself. Instead, through an ongoing engagement and critique of theories prominent within ritual studies, she argues for an understanding of ritualization as a distinct way of acting, with an internal structural pattern which can be deployed within various contexts to achieve ends both salient to its actors and constitutive of its own reproduction.
Bell delineates ritualization as a strategy for enacting power relations through the symbolic ordering of a particular social environment. Drawing upon Althusser's theory of practice, she argues that rituals are not directed at addressing independently constituted social concerns. Rather, in projecting a ritualized environment, they transpose the terms of a problematic objective context into the terms of the ritual, and then proceed to resolve an orchestrated tension among those terms. Thus, the object to which a ritual actually addresses its activity is in fact a product of its own reframing of reality.
The hierarchical distinctions through which ritual effects its ordering of a social environment are internalized by its participants as schemes which can later be reprojected in other contexts, to ends advantageous to themselves. It is in this way that ritualization, not in specific ritual components but as a distinct, strategic way of acting, reproduces itself.
Bell also nuances, but does not reject, the notion of ritual as a means of social control, delineating the ways in which participants must be free to contest and appropriate for their own ends the schemes employed by a ritual, if the ritual authority is to actually engage them in a legitimating relation of power, and not simply one of coercion.
Bell's construction of ritualization and its implications involve complex social formulae of circularity, mutual definition, and the translation of relations across different fields of signification and action. It is a demanding read, constantly thought provoking, and valuable for both the heuristic frame it offers, and its inducement to greater self-awareness on the part of socio-cultural theorists.
Bell delineates ritualization as a strategy for enacting power relations through the symbolic ordering of a particular social environment. Drawing upon Althusser's theory of practice, she argues that rituals are not directed at addressing independently constituted social concerns. Rather, in projecting a ritualized environment, they transpose the terms of a problematic objective context into the terms of the ritual, and then proceed to resolve an orchestrated tension among those terms. Thus, the object to which a ritual actually addresses its activity is in fact a product of its own reframing of reality.
The hierarchical distinctions through which ritual effects its ordering of a social environment are internalized by its participants as schemes which can later be reprojected in other contexts, to ends advantageous to themselves. It is in this way that ritualization, not in specific ritual components but as a distinct, strategic way of acting, reproduces itself.
Bell also nuances, but does not reject, the notion of ritual as a means of social control, delineating the ways in which participants must be free to contest and appropriate for their own ends the schemes employed by a ritual, if the ritual authority is to actually engage them in a legitimating relation of power, and not simply one of coercion.
Bell's construction of ritualization and its implications involve complex social formulae of circularity, mutual definition, and the translation of relations across different fields of signification and action. It is a demanding read, constantly thought provoking, and valuable for both the heuristic frame it offers, and its inducement to greater self-awareness on the part of socio-cultural theorists.
May 1, 2015
Sometimes it reads like a summary of various theoretical argument; but it is really not that. What distinguishes Bell's book from all other book that only engages with previous theorists in a student-manner is that Bell presents the book not as an argument with given contents, but as a ritual occasion to engage with the presence of previous colleagues. She understands deeply how theoretical practice itself constitutes one particular way of forming understandings; therefore, as a ritual participants in this collective enterprise, she elegantly pays tributes to significant authorities (earlier scholars) whose presence and theories are also recognized by other colleagues, and at the same time re-evaluates the whole framework, and gives out her own voice in the way of showing us a different way of seeing ritual. In the first place, this book is written to rework the perceptions of the theorists. In the second place, it provides the theorists with a new set of language so that they could not only "describe" things differently, but also to realize the ritual consequences of their practices of reasoning. "The formal study of ritual itself....might be yet another arena for negotiating the relations between the practical knowledge and the practice of religion" (222), what she says at the end of the book shows simultaneously theoretical humility and great ambition. Humility, in the sense that she assumes rather than abandons all the baggage of scholarship; ambition; in the sense that she rejects the simply dichotomization between thought and action, calls for awareness that theoretical reasoning itself is also action, and proposes that a formal study of ritual itself may be an occasion of redefining our perception of the relationship between thought and action. A new language that shall be delineated in future empirical studies informed by theoretical reflexivity.
December 8, 2023
The way that Bell described ritual is significant because it challenges prior consensus on the topic. Durkheim insisted that rites are a collective presentation expressing social realities, that reinforce one another. Geertz seconded this notion, emphasizing the reciprocal behavior among ritual and society with respective social and cultural symbolic meanings. Bell described ritual as a method by which social hierarchies are sustained. She emphasized the paramount necessity of seeing ritual through time, instead of viewing it as something isolated in a vacuum. Through this lens, we can see that new concerns, realities, and grievances are adopted through ritual, yet still unchanging in result, because they maintain the existing social hierarchies. In this manner, ritual isn’t a process by which to address a major grievance with the order of the cosmos or society, but rather a way of making peace with finding your ground within it. This has significant undertones of Marx and Freud, while also not bearing the very negative connotations that usually are aligned with their ideas, and for good reason. Bell doesn’t dismiss the ethos and worldviews associated with the rituals. In fact, she embraced them with an accepting demeanor that shone much needed light on the topic, itself. For these reasons, the very human element is studied with careful consideration and without a harsh bias regarding their respective rituals. However, the approach still presents us with a decent understanding of how rituals reinforce power structures and maintain social hierarchies. Ultimately, through the lens of Bell’s, we see that rituals are a means to placate both society and the individual, ontologically speaking.
Power is a dynamic concept in Bell’s theories. Through her theories, we can visualize power as somewhat being a cetripetal force that drives all other aspects of the equation. Given this notion, we can see that any account of changing traditions and rituals are concerned with how power is to be distributed, no matter how sacredly or profanely they are disguised. Bell stated, “The deployment of ritualization, consciously or unconsciously is the deployment of a particular construction of power relationships, a particular relationship of domination, consent, and resistance”(Bell, 206). In this manner, the rituals that individuals and groups employ to seek power, are thereby restricting them, socially– according to Bell. This is the culmination of Bell’s theory that groups and individuals seek power, even if only internally, through ritual as a medium, yet those rituals are a method by which the social hierarchies are maintained. So, even though in a time-specific scenario, those rituals are mechanisms of a much larger power structure. While people may very well find empowerment through rituals, they are very likely restricted by them, as well. Bell describes power as molding or penetrating all facets of society, and the mechanism used is the ritual. She stated, “Relationships of power are drawn from the social body and then reappropriated by the social body as experience”(Bell, 207). According to Bell, power then, is the defining force of all society. The ordered hegemony infiltrates all social functions, roles, and practices. Seeing ritual as a practice of this power, is Bell’s point. In addition, she argued that embodying the power structure and its narrative isn’t even necessary, because it will still reinforce itself through objectification or solely through experience. This paradox is is representative of how thought and action are not so cut and dry, a simple opposing pair to be analyzed in the academy through a ritualistic lens.
I think Bell’s theories can be used and applied all throughout religious studies, assuming an individual would want to employ them. Ritual mastery, when a person ritualizes part of life that’s not normally ritualized, is going to be seen nearly everywhere you look. Misrecognition, when a person doesn’t actually recognize their role of manifesting the ritual scheme, is also found everywhere you look. I would think that ritual mastery is the term Bell used to describe the practices she talked about in the “folk religion” video. These practices of santifying the mundane or venerating the common, occur everywhere you look. This can be seen in my own personal life, so I’ll use it as an example to keep from misspeaking on someone else’s behalf. Often, when there’s a mishap, unlucky instance, or close call when we are on the road traveling, we will rub the hanging ornament of my rearview mirror, which is Our Lady of Fatima. It was a gift from my sister-in-law. An ornamental symbol of protection, if you will. However, it is very unlikely that Our Lady of Fatime had anything at all to do with the fact that my brakes worked well enough to keep me from rear-ending the jerk who pulled out in front of me. As a rational person, I am highly aware of this. However, my misrecognition of this gratitude ritual of rubbing the Our Lady of Fatima ornament when things like this happens, actually guides me to be open to consideration of the possibility that perhaps she is involved or somehow invoked in my safe-keeping on the road. This is because I’ve ritualized her presence with that notion. This would be multiplied if I were for some reason to remove her from my truck, and then immediately have bad luck on the road. I would set myself up for a grand gesture of being forsaken or having forsaken Our Lady of Fatima. All of this is purely theoretical, of course. I don’t think she practices an individual watch over me and my family. However, by continuing this practice, I don’t recognize the weight of my actions and how I’m setting myself up to put faith in her protection. Overall, I see lots of good points in Bell’s theory. I don’t think they’re particularly new, but I could be wrong. I see these same theories regarding “The Rapture” on a daily basis. I don’t think she’s the first to question how self-fulfilling prophecies and rituals have a profound impact on society and reinforce their respective power structures. This was very hard for me to read, because it was so dense and abstract. It didn’t carry alot of data. It didn’t have a tangible subject group. So, I wasn’t too found of her writing. It was way too heavy for me. The vocabulary alone made it hard for me to grasp. She also was writing off of previous theorists, of whom I’ve never read. So, it was hard for me to keep up. Once I broke it down to her actual underlying concepts, I understood them. Yet, I don’t think they were as original as the field portrays them to be. However, her videos were very nice. I watched several of them on YouTube and found her speech to be far far better than her writing. That’s usually rare for me to admit, so perhaps she just lost me in all of her grand terminology. I felt like there’s no way the person speaking in the “Folk Religion” video could’ve written that required material this week, although she did. There’s a vast difference in actual rhetoric and seeing her thoughts in literary form. Many would commend her for that, but I’m not going to this time. Perhaps, if I read the book in its entirety or some of her other works, I will. She seemed to really struggle with laying out lengthy definitions for something rather simple. I circled a plethora of paragraphs in the material that really could’ve been summed up under the term of “symbolic”. Yet, she went above, beyond, and out of sight and ear-shot trying to give a lengthy definition of what “symbolic” means, which is sort of ironic, given the meaning of the word.
Bell, C. (1993). Ritual theory, ritual practice. Sociology of Religion, 54(3), 321. https://doi.org/10.2307/3711731
Power is a dynamic concept in Bell’s theories. Through her theories, we can visualize power as somewhat being a cetripetal force that drives all other aspects of the equation. Given this notion, we can see that any account of changing traditions and rituals are concerned with how power is to be distributed, no matter how sacredly or profanely they are disguised. Bell stated, “The deployment of ritualization, consciously or unconsciously is the deployment of a particular construction of power relationships, a particular relationship of domination, consent, and resistance”(Bell, 206). In this manner, the rituals that individuals and groups employ to seek power, are thereby restricting them, socially– according to Bell. This is the culmination of Bell’s theory that groups and individuals seek power, even if only internally, through ritual as a medium, yet those rituals are a method by which the social hierarchies are maintained. So, even though in a time-specific scenario, those rituals are mechanisms of a much larger power structure. While people may very well find empowerment through rituals, they are very likely restricted by them, as well. Bell describes power as molding or penetrating all facets of society, and the mechanism used is the ritual. She stated, “Relationships of power are drawn from the social body and then reappropriated by the social body as experience”(Bell, 207). According to Bell, power then, is the defining force of all society. The ordered hegemony infiltrates all social functions, roles, and practices. Seeing ritual as a practice of this power, is Bell’s point. In addition, she argued that embodying the power structure and its narrative isn’t even necessary, because it will still reinforce itself through objectification or solely through experience. This paradox is is representative of how thought and action are not so cut and dry, a simple opposing pair to be analyzed in the academy through a ritualistic lens.
I think Bell’s theories can be used and applied all throughout religious studies, assuming an individual would want to employ them. Ritual mastery, when a person ritualizes part of life that’s not normally ritualized, is going to be seen nearly everywhere you look. Misrecognition, when a person doesn’t actually recognize their role of manifesting the ritual scheme, is also found everywhere you look. I would think that ritual mastery is the term Bell used to describe the practices she talked about in the “folk religion” video. These practices of santifying the mundane or venerating the common, occur everywhere you look. This can be seen in my own personal life, so I’ll use it as an example to keep from misspeaking on someone else’s behalf. Often, when there’s a mishap, unlucky instance, or close call when we are on the road traveling, we will rub the hanging ornament of my rearview mirror, which is Our Lady of Fatima. It was a gift from my sister-in-law. An ornamental symbol of protection, if you will. However, it is very unlikely that Our Lady of Fatime had anything at all to do with the fact that my brakes worked well enough to keep me from rear-ending the jerk who pulled out in front of me. As a rational person, I am highly aware of this. However, my misrecognition of this gratitude ritual of rubbing the Our Lady of Fatima ornament when things like this happens, actually guides me to be open to consideration of the possibility that perhaps she is involved or somehow invoked in my safe-keeping on the road. This is because I’ve ritualized her presence with that notion. This would be multiplied if I were for some reason to remove her from my truck, and then immediately have bad luck on the road. I would set myself up for a grand gesture of being forsaken or having forsaken Our Lady of Fatima. All of this is purely theoretical, of course. I don’t think she practices an individual watch over me and my family. However, by continuing this practice, I don’t recognize the weight of my actions and how I’m setting myself up to put faith in her protection. Overall, I see lots of good points in Bell’s theory. I don’t think they’re particularly new, but I could be wrong. I see these same theories regarding “The Rapture” on a daily basis. I don’t think she’s the first to question how self-fulfilling prophecies and rituals have a profound impact on society and reinforce their respective power structures. This was very hard for me to read, because it was so dense and abstract. It didn’t carry alot of data. It didn’t have a tangible subject group. So, I wasn’t too found of her writing. It was way too heavy for me. The vocabulary alone made it hard for me to grasp. She also was writing off of previous theorists, of whom I’ve never read. So, it was hard for me to keep up. Once I broke it down to her actual underlying concepts, I understood them. Yet, I don’t think they were as original as the field portrays them to be. However, her videos were very nice. I watched several of them on YouTube and found her speech to be far far better than her writing. That’s usually rare for me to admit, so perhaps she just lost me in all of her grand terminology. I felt like there’s no way the person speaking in the “Folk Religion” video could’ve written that required material this week, although she did. There’s a vast difference in actual rhetoric and seeing her thoughts in literary form. Many would commend her for that, but I’m not going to this time. Perhaps, if I read the book in its entirety or some of her other works, I will. She seemed to really struggle with laying out lengthy definitions for something rather simple. I circled a plethora of paragraphs in the material that really could’ve been summed up under the term of “symbolic”. Yet, she went above, beyond, and out of sight and ear-shot trying to give a lengthy definition of what “symbolic” means, which is sort of ironic, given the meaning of the word.
Bell, C. (1993). Ritual theory, ritual practice. Sociology of Religion, 54(3), 321. https://doi.org/10.2307/3711731
February 13, 2021
Catherine Bell is a genius of a theorist. This book, when it was published, made shockwaves through the field of religious studies. Since then, her influence on ritual studies has not been eclipsed. Although she is underrated in her theory and her work (against those like JZ Smith), her theory is brilliant. The first 80 or so pages are set up for her theory, and once you get a greater understanding of the setup, the implications of her contribution are quite impactful.
A warning, this book is quite dense, so not for a first foreway into ritual theory or religion theory. A smattering of an understanding of Marx or Gramsci and Foucault is also useful.
A warning, this book is quite dense, so not for a first foreway into ritual theory or religion theory. A smattering of an understanding of Marx or Gramsci and Foucault is also useful.
April 5, 2015
a true master piece. I will write a more detailed review later. for now, the key terms, the four characteristics of "practice" provisional, strategic, mis-recognition, a vision of power. this vision of power is termed as redemptive hegemony.
key of ritualization: binary opposites, differentiation and hierarchy, a loose sense of totality
key of ritualization: binary opposites, differentiation and hierarchy, a loose sense of totality
October 26, 2020
this has drastically changed how I understand ideology, social control/resistance, ritual, and hegemony.
May 11, 2019
I started off by hating this book (and I’m still not enamoured with section 1) but I keep returning to it, and every time I do so, I discover something new.
Essential reading, though I think there are some other essays based on this which may prove as a better/ simpler introduction to Bell’s work.
Essential reading, though I think there are some other essays based on this which may prove as a better/ simpler introduction to Bell’s work.
September 18, 2020
This was a tough book to review because it has something important and interesting to say, but it is very clearly for the academic crowd. This is not a knock against the book, but a caution that if you aren't at least semi-well versed in the ritual studies area then this will be a difficult book to get much out of.
November 12, 2017
This remains an exceptional discourse analysis on theories of ritual 25 year after publication. Bell articulates nuances between existing theories of ritual and offers a framework to understand them without succumbing to the same circular discursive tendencies among traditional theories.
September 19, 2019
Good introduction to the many dimensions that exist in current scholarship on ritualistic activities. Catherine bell is widely considered the most important scholar in this area of literature
January 17, 2023
Unimpressed. If this is supposed to be the standard text, we need new work in ritual theory...
September 22, 2023
some really good stuff in here, but i think these kinds of 200-page-lit-reviews are most of the time too dense and so easy to get lost in.
February 19, 2014
Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice is a thesis which proposes methods for overcoming the divide between thought and action present in the descriptions of ritual.
“...theoretical discourse about ritual is organized as a coherent whole by virtue of a logic based on the opposition of thought and action.”
“…the problems we face in analyzing ritual, as well as the impetus for engaging these particular problems, have less to do with interpreting the raw data and more to do with the manner in which we theoretically constitute ritual as the object of cultural method of interpretation.”
“…descriptions of how rituals work have been constructed according to a logic rooted in the dynamic of theoretical speculation and the unconscious manipulation of the thought-action dichotomy is intrinsic to this construction.”
While Catherine Bell appears to be primarily addressing methods in Religious Studies, in which there may have been a need for this critique, her exposition nonetheless falls flat in many places. Her analysis of the thought-action dichotomy found in Emilé Durkheim and Marcel Mauss, for example, can be attributed to their structural-functionalist foundations: a theoretical approach which has a long list of well-known strengths and weaknesses, one being the level of macro-analysis which produces the kinds of descriptions Bell is critiquing. Her use of Pierre Bourdieu and Karl Marx are slightly more appropriate, though both these authors are also operating a macro-analysis to account for both external social structures (such as class) and subjective experience (personal tastes and desires).
Much of the book is filled with statements like the following:
“..ritualization, as a strategic mode of action effective within certain social orders, does not, in any useful understanding of words, ‘control’ individual or society. Yet ritualization is very much concerned with power. Closely involved with the objectification and legitimation of an ordering of power as an assumption of the way things really are, ritualization is a strategic arena for the embodiment of power relations.”
I classify this and other similar 'insights' provided by Bell by the term "duh."
Furthermore, I do not believe there is a divide between though-action within the last 40 years of Anthropological studies in ritual, religion, and magic. The Kpelle Moot (Gibbs) acts as legal system, the Winnebago Trickster (Radin) orders and reorders cosmology from the spirits to the living, the Shaman travels to the realm of the dead (Lowie, Taussig, Hill), the Nigerian sorcerers kill (McCall).
Because the majority of Anthropologists attribute "the real" to these cultural systems, Anthropological analysis describes and explains them in terms of DOING things. In this sense, Bell would have done better to address the divide created between the power of ritual practices and the need for scientists to create 'objective' facts.
“...theoretical discourse about ritual is organized as a coherent whole by virtue of a logic based on the opposition of thought and action.”
“…the problems we face in analyzing ritual, as well as the impetus for engaging these particular problems, have less to do with interpreting the raw data and more to do with the manner in which we theoretically constitute ritual as the object of cultural method of interpretation.”
“…descriptions of how rituals work have been constructed according to a logic rooted in the dynamic of theoretical speculation and the unconscious manipulation of the thought-action dichotomy is intrinsic to this construction.”
While Catherine Bell appears to be primarily addressing methods in Religious Studies, in which there may have been a need for this critique, her exposition nonetheless falls flat in many places. Her analysis of the thought-action dichotomy found in Emilé Durkheim and Marcel Mauss, for example, can be attributed to their structural-functionalist foundations: a theoretical approach which has a long list of well-known strengths and weaknesses, one being the level of macro-analysis which produces the kinds of descriptions Bell is critiquing. Her use of Pierre Bourdieu and Karl Marx are slightly more appropriate, though both these authors are also operating a macro-analysis to account for both external social structures (such as class) and subjective experience (personal tastes and desires).
Much of the book is filled with statements like the following:
“..ritualization, as a strategic mode of action effective within certain social orders, does not, in any useful understanding of words, ‘control’ individual or society. Yet ritualization is very much concerned with power. Closely involved with the objectification and legitimation of an ordering of power as an assumption of the way things really are, ritualization is a strategic arena for the embodiment of power relations.”
I classify this and other similar 'insights' provided by Bell by the term "duh."
Furthermore, I do not believe there is a divide between though-action within the last 40 years of Anthropological studies in ritual, religion, and magic. The Kpelle Moot (Gibbs) acts as legal system, the Winnebago Trickster (Radin) orders and reorders cosmology from the spirits to the living, the Shaman travels to the realm of the dead (Lowie, Taussig, Hill), the Nigerian sorcerers kill (McCall).
Because the majority of Anthropologists attribute "the real" to these cultural systems, Anthropological analysis describes and explains them in terms of DOING things. In this sense, Bell would have done better to address the divide created between the power of ritual practices and the need for scientists to create 'objective' facts.
August 30, 2011
Bell presents an overview of approaches to the study of ritual and makes some suggestions about new ways to think about rituals and to approach the study of rituals. This is a rather dense history and critique of the ways scholars in a range of fields have approached the study of ritual. Very important, very useful for getting an overview of the state of the question (now about 10 years old) and very useful for those interested in rethinking ritual.
January 31, 2013
I'd forgotten how much I liked this.
Read
June 21, 2013Serious reading. Her earlier writing in which she draws practice theories to show how ritualizing is a strategic way of acting which results in the ritualized body.
did-not-finish
March 22, 2018Realized while reading this that it's not actually the direction I want to go with a project I'm working on, so I stopped after only a few chapters. Given that, rating it at all seems unreasonable.
April 11, 2019
In Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice, Catherine Bell first problematizes the term ‘ritual’ as it has been employed in the scholarly discursive field of ritual studies. Bell notes how the prominent theories of ritual succumb generally to a problem of circularity by producing a definition of ritual which assumes the dichotomy between thought and action that rituals are then assumed to mediate. In other words, the theory creates the very problem it intends to solve. Bell then provides an alternative framework for the study of ritual which centers on ‘ritualization’ as a strategy for setting apart certain practices from others within a specific practical setting. Further, these situationally specific, strategic practices secure a certain order of power relations through a Bourdieusian ‘misrecognition’ of what the actions do.
Though Bell defines her borrowed terms well, it is best to approach this book having read Foucault and Bourdieu.
Though Bell defines her borrowed terms well, it is best to approach this book having read Foucault and Bourdieu.
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